Nine Continents: A Memoir in and Out of Chinaby Xiaolu Guo

Nine Continents: A Memoir in and Out of China Read Online Free - Xiaolu Guo is one of the most acclaimed Chinese-born writers of her generation, an iconoclastic and completely contemporary voice. Her vivid, poignant memoir, Nine Continents is the story of a curious mind coming of age in an inhospitable country, and her determination to seek a life beyond the limits of its borders.

Xiaolu Guo has traveled further than most to become who she needed to be. Now, as she experiences the birth of her daughter in a London maternity ward surrounded by women from all over the world, she looks back on that journey. It begins in the fishing village shack on the East China Sea where her illiterate grandparents raised her, and brings her to a rapidly changing Beijing, full of contradictions: a thriving underground art scene amid mass censorship, curious Westerners who held out affection only to disappear back home. Eventually Xiaolu determined to see the world beyond China for herself, and now, after fifteen years in Europe, her words resonate with the insight of someone both an outsider and at home, in a world far beyond the country of her birth.

Nine Continents presents a fascinating portrait of China in the eighties and nineties, how the Cultural Revolution shaped families, and how the country's economic ambitions gave rise to great change. It is also a moving testament to the birth of a creative spirit, and of a new generation being raised to become citizens of the world. It confirms Xiaolu Guo as one of world literature's most urgent voices.

Title

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Nine Continents: A Memoir in and Out of China

Author

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Xiaolu Guo

Rating

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ISBN

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0802127134

Edition Language

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English

Format Type

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Hardcover

Number of Pages

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304 pages

Reviews

Hannah rated it ★★★★☆

September 21, 2017

Absolutely wonderful memoir by a woman beyond impressive. She talks about alienation and perseverance, about loss and art, about growing up and finding herself, and everything in-between.
Xiaolu Guo's life sounds like something out of a movie: born to an intellectual who had spent time in a labou...

Laura rated it ★★★★☆

June 23, 2017

An introspective view of the author's life in China. I cannot imagine growing up as she had - starting in a poor fishing village living with her grandparents, then moving with her parents to a town where her life wasn't much better. While the book is a memoir, it does have quite a bit of history...

Peter rated it ★★★☆☆

January 28, 2018

This was a pretty unpleasant read. The author had a very hard childhood, a hard student and young-adult life, and was lonely and unhappy when she moved to the UK, on a film-school scholarship that turned into a permanent move. The book does end on a more positive note.
I skimmed much of the most u...

Melinda rated it ★★★★☆

November 14, 2017

Upon the birth of her daughter in England, writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo reflects on her life up to this point: her early years raised by her grandparents in a Chinese fishing village by the sea, her school years with her parents in an industrial town, her delve into film studies in a rapidly c...

Carol rated it ★★★★☆

October 22, 2017

Xialu Guo's memoir takes us back to a tiny fishing village in China. Her parents couldn't care for her when she was a baby, so her mother gave her to another poor couple to raise. By the time the couple found her grandparents and took her to them, she was starving to death. Her grandmother manage...

Juliana rated it ★★★★☆

September 14, 2017

My review: https://theblankgarden.com/2017/09/14...

Rhonda rated it ★★★★☆

August 24, 2017

An open real raw look into a world few of us know.Xiaolu shares with us her childhood her raising by her grandparents in their very primitive world her grandmother had bound feet,Her parents finally coming to get her bringing her into their world the world of commune living communist sharing rule...

Flavia rated it ★★★★★

May 31, 2017

I have loved and found Xiaolu Guo’s fiction so fresh and original since ‘A Concise Chinese – English Dictionary for Lovers’. I was thrilled when I discovered that she had written a memoir and ‘Nine Continents’ didn’t disappoint. At all. Far from it, I found this book absorbing, inspiring and beau...

Elainedav rated it ★★★★★

July 20, 2017

I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I like to read memoirs and especially those where the author is writing about something which really holds your interest. This is one of those books. I found the description of the author's childhood totally absorbing. Her l...

Brenda rated it ★★★★☆

June 23, 2017

Excellent memoir. It is an eye opening experience to read about growing up female in communist China. Xiaolu was given away as a small child, only to be returned to her grandparents when her adoptive family couldn't afford to feed her. She spends her childhood growing up in a small fishing villag...

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About the author

Xiaolu Guo Xiaolu Guo (Simplified Chinese: 郭小櫓 pinyin:guō xiǎo lǔ, born 1973) is a Chinese novelist and filmmaker. She utilizes various media, including film and writing, to tell stories of alienation, introspection and tragedy, and to explore China's past, present and future in an increasingly connected world.

Her novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers was nominated for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction. She was also the 2005 Pearl Award (UK) winner for Creative Excellence.

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